Let’s never mind that unpleasantness, okay? Tex and Youk return tonight and yeah, it’s more angst with Boston in town, but what the hell?

Now is a time for optimism. Whadda ya say?

Picture Via Magnificent Ruin.

Another heaping of horseshit tonight for the listless Yanks who saw Dillon Gee pitch the game of his life–allowing 1 run on 88 pitches in 8.1 innings (12 strikeouts, 0 walks)–as the Mets completed a 4-game sweep of the Yanks.

Final score: Mets 3, Yanks 1.

Not Doc Gooden, not Matt Harvey: Dillon Gee.

(Sleep well, Fellas.)

Frustration began before the game started, what with the last three nights still fresh in mind, and only increased after the Yanks stranded two base runners in each of the first couple of innings. Turns out that was their best chance of the night. But if we’re going to be philosophical about things–yes, that will help–here’s what said it all:

Mets have runners on first and second, top of the 8th, 2 out. Joba Chamberlain comes in to face John Buck. And Joba is throwing cheddar, 98 mph. He gets ahead of Buck and then bounces a curve ball in front of the plate. Austin Romine blocks the ball from going past him but it skips far enough away so that the runners advance. The force play is out. And so Buck hits a slow, measly little horseshit ground ball that hugs the third base line. And it doesn’t go foul. Just innocently rolls along as the runner from third scores.

Sometimes there’s nothing to do but take it.

Only 4 hits for the weak offense in pinstripes who have lost 5 straight. Nope, even with Youk and Tex back tomorrow this is not good news with the Red Sox coming to town this weekend.

It’s hot as a man’s nuts there. Summer hot. Schvitzy.

Tonight gives Vidal Nuno and time for a win.

Brett Gardner CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Travis Hafner DH
Lyle Overbay 1B
Brennan Boesch RF
David Adams 3B
Reid Brignac SS
Austin Romine C

Never mind the broomsticks:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Picture by George S. Gati]

Pictures by Victor Meeussen at Everyday I Show.

Mash-Up.

[Featured image via: This Isn’t Happiness]

Adrian Beltre: funny.

David Phelps was so horseshit last night he didn’t make it out of the first inning. The Yanks were so horseshit as they let a horseshit team kick their ass at home by the tune of 9-4.

The game was, in a word–you guessed it: horseshit.

Moving right along…

After two 2-1 loses in Queens, the Yanks and Mets head up to the Bronx for two more games.

It’s Dave Phelps and the hopes that the Yanks can win these next couple of games and not suck balls.

1. Gardner CF
2. Cano 2B
3. Hafner DH
4. Overbay 1B
5. Boesch RF
6. Suzuki LF
7. Nix 3B
8. Brignac SS
9. Stewart C

Never mind last night: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Our pal Diane Firstman hipped me to this post of 28 Impressive Examples of street art from around the world. From So Bad So Good.

Nice piece in the Times by Rachel Howard about how writing is like drawing:

Five years ago, I walked into a third-floor art studio on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, climbed atop a wooden stage covered in stained padding and dropped my ratty yellow bathrobe. A panel of strangers asked me to pose, and then to freeze. I had never modeled for artists, and had no idea how I would feel standing naked as people I had just met stared at me. The idea held some bohemian appeal, but more urgently, I needed to supplement my income as a freelance writer while I worked on a novel.

I made the cut, and became a member of the Bay Area Models Guild. I had hoped this gig might earn me grocery money. I soon grew to love the freedom and strange relinquishment of status that comes from offering your nude presence to artists. What surprised me the most, though, was how profoundly it changed my writing life.

Soon I was sent out on bookings, mostly to introductory college drawing classes. The professor’s approach was always the same. I was asked to do many sets of active one- or two-minute poses.

“Find the gesture!” the instructor would shout, as the would-be artists sketched. “What is the essence of that pose? How does that pose feel to the model? The whole pose — quick, quick! No, not the arm or the leg. The line of the energy. What is that pose about? Step back and see it — really see it — whole.” And then, my timer beeped, I moved to a new pose and the students furiously flipped to a clean page.

This “gesture” idea was fundamental. In painting classes, where I held the same pose for three hours (with frequent five-minute breaks, thank God), the paintings that looked most alive were built on top of a good gesture sketch, a first-step, quick-and-dirty drawing in which many crucial decisions about placement, perspective and emphasis were made intuitively.

In a gesture drawing, a whole arm that didn’t matter much might be just a smudgy slash, while a line that captured the twist of a spine might stand in sharp, carefully observed relief. The “gesture” was the line of organic connection within the body, the trace of kinetic cause-and-effect that made the figure a live human being rather than a corpse of stitched-together parts. If you “found the gesture,” you found life.

Are there sports fans out there that believe good things will happen to their team? Oh, I’m sure there are, and if you root for the Yankees, you’ll find a healthy group of them and why not?

Not me. I plan for the worst and am pleased when things go well. So going into this week I figured Mariano Rivera was due to blow his first save of the season against either the Mets or the Red Sox. When the Mets had Rivera throw out the first pitch to last night’s game, well, my neurotic clock was set in motion.

Really, it’s all Brett Gardner’s fault (well, technically, it’s still Alex Rodriguez’s fault but that goes without saying). On Monday, he robbed Daniel Murphy of a home run and Murphy later got the game-winning hit. Gardner robbed Murphy again last night, not of a home run but at least a double, and so when Murphy dumped a double against Rivera to lead-off the bottom of the 9th, Yankee fans knew the improbable was about to happen. At least I did. I watched the rest of the game without sound.

Two base hits later the Mets had a 2-1 win spoiling a terrific performance by Hiroki Kuroda (seven scoreless innings).

Matt Harvey was great, too, allowing one run in 8 innings.

It was a good game with a great ending for the Mets. And it was a tough night of sleep for Yankee fans, at least this one.

It’s raining but let’s hope they get this one in: Hiroki Kuroda vs. Matt Harvey.

Brett Gardner CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Lyle Overbay 1B
David Adams 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Reid Brignac SS
Chris Stewart C
Hiroki Kuroda SP

Never mind the Phenom: Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photo Credit: Simon Davidson]

Sometimes Tuesdays feel like Mondays.

Picture by Liz Devine.

The great site Cinephilia and Beyond gives us the goods on The French Connection.

Yeah, the Spurs are pretty good, huh?

[Photo Credit: Christopher Vu]

When Michael Kay informed us that the Yankee bullpen has been outstanding in the month of May the game was tied 1-1 in the 8th inning. Jonathan Niese and Phil Hughes both pitched well. The Yanks scored their run thanks to Lucas Duda misplaying a short fly ball by Brett Gardner into a triple (he scored on a base hit by Jayson Nix); the Mets tied it up an inning later on a long solo home run by David Wright. It could have been worse for Hughes but Gardner ended the sixth with a beautiful catch robbing Daniel Murphy of a two-run homer.

So with the reliable David Robertson in the game, bottom of the 8th, Michael Kay was just reporting the facts when he told us how well the Yankee bullpen has been. But as any self-respecting Yankee fan–already agitated at the way the game was shaping up and seeking to pin their frustration on a fatheaded announcer–well knew, that meant something had to give. Course it was Robertson. He didn’t get bombed but a one-out bloop double, a walk, and a solid single up the middle by Murphy–ah, sweet revenge–gave the Mets a humble 2-1 lead.

It was enough as Bobby Parnell set the Yanks down without incident in the 9th. And so with the imposing young Matt Harvey looming tomorrow the Mets take the first game of the Subway Serious as the Yanks slip out of first place.

[Photo Via: The Retrologist]

Yanks-Mets this week. First two are out in Queens.

It’s Phil Hughes which spells hope for Los Mets.

Brett Gardner CF
Jayson Nix SS
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
David Adams 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Lyle Overbay 1B
Chris Stewart C
Phil Hughes SP

Never mind the nonsense:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

Chad Jennings has the post-game reaction to C.C. Sabathia’s latest performance:

“I’m hurting the team. I’m not helping the team out. I just need to get better. … With this crew, this team that we have, we battle to the end. We did it tonight. I just didn’t give us a chance. Just not being able to keep the game close and giving these guys a chance to feel like they can come back and win the game.”

[Photo Credit: N.Y. Daily News]

C.C. Sabathia’s next start is scheduled for Friday against the Red Sox. There will be plenty of time to consider what’s wrong with the Big Man who followed-up a pair of mediocre starts today with an ass-whuppin’ in Tampa. Gave up seven runs, his worst outing of the season, and got his tits lit proper. Gunna be a long week for C.C.

Alex Cobb was terrific and the Rays sailed to a 8-3 win, despite a mini-rally by the Yanks in the 9th.

[Photo Credit: John Ogden]

Alex Cobb pitched a great game against the Yankees last month. Today, he goes against C.C. Sabathia who has been solid but far from terrific so far in 2013.

Here’s hoping we see something stellar from C.C. this afternoon as the Yanks go for the sweep.

Brett Gardner CF
Robinson Cano 2B
Vernon Wells LF
Travis Hafner DH
Lyle Overbay 1B
David Adams 3B
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Jayson Nix SS
Austin Romine C

Never mind the week ahead against the Mets and Red Sox:

Let’s Go Yank-ees!

[Photograph by Gabi Ben Avraham]